Economy

Perth City region: Economic Overview

Perth City Region is one of Scotland’s fastest growing areas, delivering a supportive and collaborative environment in which to start, grow or relocate your business to. From major PLCs, such as Highland Spring, Stagecoach and SSE (all headquartered in the city region), to the many innovative and market-leading across the region, the area performs strongly in a number of key economic sectors.

Food & Drink

With its growing population and enduring tourist appeal, Perth City Region is home to almost 1,000 food and drink businesses – the largest concentration for any city region in Scotland. Among the numerous restaurants in Perth itself, many showcase the fantastic local produce from Perthshire’s rich farmland, mountains, lochs and rivers.

Tourism

Whether for day trips or longer stays, Perth’s historic and cultural attractions ensure the area is always a firm favourite, attracting more than 1.9m tourists annually. Tourism accounts for around 12% of total employment in the area, and this is set to increase.

Retail

Perth city offers a truly unique and distinctive opportunity to retailers. Its proposed growth will supplement a current retail catchment population of 338,000, who live within a half hour drive time of the city centre and provide estimated core catchment expenditure of £631m annually.

Renewables and Clean Technology

With its easy access to world-leading research the Perth city region provides a hub of like-minded businesses to inspire and support commercial eco-innovation. National and international businesses are developing products and services here that will shape future best practice in resource efficiency.

Financial and Business Services

Perth is one of seven UK Centres of Excellence for insurance giant Aviva, where operations are focused on serving the company’s 13 million UK home insurance customers. The city’s reputation for financial expertise traces its origins back to the establishment of General Accident in the city in 1885. (Insurance accounts for one in four of the 8,000+ jobs within financial services in the region.)

Across all the key sectors, the area’s success is built on a highly attractive cost base and its highly skilled workforce, who will support your business as it grows.

Employment

Employment by Broad Sector 2014, Perth & Kinross

Number in Employment

%

Mining, quarrying & utilities

2,200

3

Manufacturing

3,800

6

Construction

4,600

7

Motor trades

2,800

4

Wholesale

1,900

3

Retail

7,400

12

Transport & storage

2,100

3

Accommodation & food services

7,700

12

Information & communication

500

1

Financial & insurance

1,700

3

Property

1,000

2

Professional, scientific & technical

3,300

5

Business services

4,400

7

Public admin & defence

3,300

5

Education

4,600

7

Health

8,500

13

Arts, entertainment, recreation & other

3,300

5

TOTAL

63,900

100

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey

Gross Value by Sector

Sector

£m

Primary Industries

*

Manufacturing

171.6

Construction

216.2

Wholesale, retail and repairs

*

Transport and storage

88.0

Accommodation and food service activities

164.0

Information and communication

35.2

Real estate activities

54.0

Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities

164.3

Administrative and support service activities

115.3

Education, human health and social work activities

72.0

Arts, entertainment and recreation

51.3

Other service activities

37.1

TOTAL

2,574.0

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Business Survey* = data not available for publication

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The city of Perth is open for business and the Invest in Perth team can help you and your business to relocate or expand within the city region. If you would like more information on what Perth has to offer,Get In Touch Today!